After a surprisingly slim last few weeks at the home-video box office (you know, Amazon), things are starting to pick right back up, with a bevy of new offerings to suit every taste (including tastes that relish things titled Sexandroide) hitting shelves this week. Despite a wide range of options for your DVD- and Blu-ray-loving heart, there’s one class of picks that stands out from the pack: women taking on unexpected and offbeat roles in films that, for better and occasionally for worse, aren’t interested in saddling actresses with cookie-cutter parts.

Between Big Eyes, Maps To The Stars, The Babadook, and God Help The Girl, this week at in the home video realm is full to bursting with female-driven films that refuse to adhere to standard narratives, tones, and motivations. Although the emphasis here is on horror, thanks to The Babadook and Maps To The Stars, there’s also charm (God Help The Girl) and historical drama (well, told through Tim Burton’s lens in Big Eyes) to spare. If you’re down on what the box office has to offer in terms of lady-centric films, staying home might actually be your best bet this week. And, of course, if you want to see Sexandroide, that’s better left to the privacy of your own living room.

DVD and Blu-ray (* = combo pack)
Antarctica: A Year On Ice (Music Box)
A Spell To Ward Off The Darkness (KimStim)
Big Eyes (Starz/Anchor Bay)
Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (Kino)
Candlestick (Workbus)
Class Of 1984 (Scream Factory)
Class Of Nuke ‘Em High 2: Subhumanoid Meltdown (Troma)
Echoes (Starz/Anchor Bay)
Enter The Dangerous Mind (Well Go USA)
From The Dark (MPI)
Goodbye to Language (Kino)
I Am Steve McQueen (Shout Factory)
Jinn (Freestyle)
Kidnapping Mr. Heineken (Millennium)
Late For Dinner (Kino)
Long Weekend (Synapse Films)
M (Criterion)
Maps To The Stars (Universal)
Odd Man Out (Criterion)
Sullivan’s Travels (Criterion)
Tales Of Terror (Kino)
The Man From Reno / Up To His Ears (Cohen Media Group)
The Babadook (Shout Factory)
The Man With The Iron Fists 2: The Sting Of The Scorpion (Universal)*
The Toxic Avenger: Part II (Troma)*
The Way Things Go (Icarus Films)
Vengeance Of An Assassin (Well Go USA)
The Woman In Black 2: Angel Of Death (Fox)
Woman Of Straw (Kino)

DVD
All The Devils Aliens (Bayview Entertainment)
A Tale Of Winter (Big World Films)
Beside Still Waters (Cinedigm)
Drink Me (TLA Releasing)
For Lovers Only (FilmBuff)
God Help The Girl (Anchor Bay)
He Loves Me He Loves Me Not (First Run Features)
I Really Hate My Ex (Lionsgate)
John Doe: Vigilante (Arc Entertainment)
Little Miss Innocence / Teenage Seductress (Vinegar Syndrome)
Maidan (Cinema Guild)
Rec 4 (Sony)
Roadside (Image Entertainment)
Sexandriode (Massacre Video)
Spine (Massacre Video)
Stand Your Ground (Phase 4 Films)
Such Good People (Breaking Glass Pictures)
Supersoul Brother (Vinegar Syndrome)
The Town That Came A Courtin’ (Phase 4 Films)
You’re Not You (Entertainment One)

Blu-ray
Carrie / The Rage: Carrie 2 (Scream Factory)
Eddie And The Cruisers / Eddie And The Cruisers II (Shout Factory)
Hustler White (Strand Releasing)